


Razor Wire Shrine

by ballpointsherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Abuse, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Sherlock, BAMF John, Baker Street, Character Development, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, John is Missing, Mind Palace, New villian, Original Character(s), POV John Watson, POV Sherlock Holmes, Paris (City), Self-Harm, am i talking to myself?, but not by the character, but not really in the way you'd think, casefic, could be percieved as self-harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1920777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpointsherlock/pseuds/ballpointsherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's abduction is not what Sherlock meant when he prayed to whatever murderous Gods were listening to smite him with something to do. However Sherlock's attempts to recover his flatmate are threatened by the emotion tormenting the catacombs of his mind, and the fact that John never really was the sitting down type.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is inspired by Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" - I feel like parts might as well be written about Sherlock. I'm glad I found it, because I don't know what I'd have called this otherwise - "John is missing" isn't quite the same.  
> Thank you to Conan Doyle for the characters, and Mark Gattis and Steven Moffat for the adaption.

You give us a tantrum and a know-it-all grin, just when we need one, when the evening's wearing thin. You're so beautiful, a beautiful fucked up man. You're setting up your razor wire shrine, cause you're working, building a mystery.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Sherlock was bored. A dull continium drummed in his head, the tap-tap-tap of John's fingers on keys threatening to but never quite coalescing into the steady rhythm of Mrs Hudson scrubbing the floorboards below. It was all so asinine and so routine he was tempted to fling his own body out of the window just for lack of anyone else's. He glared at John instead, hoping the doctor might procure a case for him. There had to _be_ one - people always sent John cases. Where's my cat? Is my husband stealing the papers from our corner shop and exporting them to Dubai? Where can I get a hat like yours?

Who on Earth would optionally elect to wear an ear-flapped frisbee?

 _Irrelevant_ , Sherlock commanded as his brain immediately began to list the people who would in fact wear such a hat. The details of an ear-flapped frisbee hat were not a case, and what he _really_ needed was a case. John had still not averted his eyes from his keyboard. Tap, tap, tappety-tap. Disgusting.

"You can't still be writing a blog post," Sherlock said. "Even you don't take two weeks to write up a case. So what are you writing? Evidently someone's going to read it; you keep backspacing. Wouldn't care if it wasn't quite right otherwise. _So_ , who can John Watson be emailing?"

For the first time in exactly thirty six mintues, John looked up and, keeping eye contact with Sherlock, slammed the lid shut just before Sherlock caught the screen.

"Oh come on, John. It's not a girlfriend, is it?"

John's lips pressed together in a way that practically screamed _we're not talking about this, Sherlock_ , but Sherlock chose to ingore it. He could be forgiven for missing a tiny detail, when we must have so much else spinning around his brain.

"So it _is_ a girlfriend! Question is, who is she? Last week you went to the supermarket, the surgery, the library - oh! _Library_. You said you were going to find a medical journal by E. A. Abbott, but a) we already have them all and b) it would have been on the third row of the fifth isle approximately seven metres from the entrance if those incompetent shelf stackers actually put it in the right place, which would, allowing an extra six minutes for your frankly embarassing observational skills, result in a book-locating time of eight minutes. You, however, were out for sixty three minutes. You took a cab judging by the way you came home muttering about sat navs and the leather-chair-fibre-alignment in your trousers, which would have taken fifteen minutes each way if the taxi driver took the second-fastest route - they usually do - so, where did the extra twenty five minutes go?"

"I had coffee."

"And who was your lunch date? The seat opposite?"

"What if it was?" John snapped before flipping up a paper and ostentatiously cutting off Sherlock's vision of his face.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and dropped unceremoniously onto the sofa. It wasn't a case, but at least he could occupy his mind guessing how long it would be until John ruined the relationship. He averaged a couple of months with most women, apart from one - Sandra? Sophie? Suzie? - who'd survived for all of three days. A library-type, then. Judging by the fact that since moving in with Sherlock John didn't have time to read, and that his knowledge of literature had been average at best even before, Sherlock estimated a month until this woman broke it off. If John was lucky. Which usually he wasn't.

"One month," he announced. John ignored him.

"Maybe less. You should really try some Shakespeare, John. Wouldn't want to fail a famous playwrite pop quiz if she springs one on you."

"For God's sake Sherlock!" John exclaimed, throwing the paper at the wall which had become subject to so much exasperation. It reached it and collapsed pitifully, the sports page drifting up and landing with a light patter on the back of a chair. Sherlock stifled a laugh.

"Really John, you ought to know that an object with such a high air resistance to weigh ratio really isn't going to respond very well to being thrown. You ought to have used that ridiculous magazine you bought with the advice - well, when I say _advice -_  column you cut out on finding a long term partner. I threw that out by the way; the grammar was awful."

John practically vibrated as he got up out of his chair to face his flatmate. His fist clenched and unclenched, and his jaw performed a series of movements which made the contortionists at the circus Sherlock had recently been to see a sorry excuse for performers.

"Just stay out of my private life, would you? Can't I have this one thing, Sherlock, just this _one thing_ to myself? Aren't there other things you can focus that massive brain of yours on deducing?"

"Well there would be, if someone would develop a hobby for serial killing already!" John chose to imagine Sherlock hadn't said that. That argument could wait for another day. "You don't believe I'd be concentrating on your string of lovers if I had something more cerebral to do?"

"It is not a 'string' of lovers, Sherlock! I... oh my God, have you ever even _been_ in a relationship?"

Sherlock considered. Rose patterned wallpaper and pink-red apples.

"Tedious."

"You haven't, have you?"

The lines in John's face sank down slowly, flattening out like the steady settling of grains of flour. Woollen blankets and sand-papered floorboards.

"As I said, tedious."

"So you've never been romantically attracted to anyone in your life?"

"Considering my two previous responses, what do you think my answer to that is going to be?"

The door to the room filled with passing commuters and the buzz of voices discussing the weather and the food and S _herlock why_ and S _herlock why_ and _Sherlock why_ banged like a screen door in a hurricane.

"Right, tedious," John confirmed. He breathed out, struggled on the breath in, and asked, "friends? Tedious?"

"You know the answer!" Sherlock exclaimed. "I don't _have_ friends, John! _Friends_."

He knuckled his eyes and tried to concentrate on the blackness and swirls of red it brought to him instead of the men and women clamouring and demanding answers as the door rattled and shook under protest, blue and pink and purple and nails and wooden crosses, the word seared and splitting across the grain.

"OK. Doesn't matter. I don't care if you've never had a relationship, Sherlock, it's all fine. Whatever," John said, reaching out with a rustle of jumper fibre and touching a hand to Sherlock's suit, calloused finger tips settling on the silk. Sherlock's skin itched at the contact and he fought the urge to jerk away, the box labelled "not good" sending out waves of warning which told him John might be offended if he shook him off. He was trying to help, it appeared - and there was something else. Sherlock found he didn't mind the contact, as John's fingers ceased to move; instead it was undeniably barable. Not something he'd _choose_ , but barable. Malfunction.

"OK," Sherlock repeated, and tucked the key to the insufferable room into the Tibettan coffee pot and left it there.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me if you like it, and shout at me if you don't. Oh, and if there are any errors, feel free to message me as many "wrong"s as you like!


	2. Chapter 2

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

So far, Sherlock had double-checked that there really were no insipid cases in John's inbox, read his browser history, and cancelled his order for a paper on the psychology of sociopathy. No paper ever written or about to be written would give John whatever answers he was looking for about the nuances of Sherlock's brain, so there was no point wasting money. Even Sherlock didn't know, and that fact drove him to distraction.

"John?"

"Mm?"

"Pen."

"Why can't you get one yourself?"

"There's one on the mantelpiece in the eye of my skull."

There were two groans from the sofa - one from the springs and one from John. Feet pattered to the skull, John hit the pen on the eye socket extracting it, and Sherlock caught it in his left hand.

"Thank you."

The pen flew across the crossword.

"Sherlock!"

"Four down: machine washable, but won't go on the couch. Six, eight."

"That's my laptop."

"Nope, won't fit."

"You know what I mean and that's still my laptop."

Sherlock would have been able to sense John's _you-obnoxious-git_ look and the way he was breathing through his nose and making a sound akin to a vacuum cleaner shutting down a mile off, but like most things that were inconvenient to the current situation he decided not to pay attention.

"We're looking for a six letter word first, but you're close."

"You have to stop taking my things _without permission_."

"Still haven't quite got it," Sherlock said as John yanked his laptop out from under the paper.

"No."

"Oh! _Shrink resistant_. Better luck next time John."

The aspirated huff from the doctor striding from the room was almost as satisfying as finishing the crossword.

But then Sherlock finished the next crossword, and the next, and also the one in the newspaper John kept in a drawer in his bedroom because it had a photo of Harry winning a poetry competition, which he restored to its original position and wondered how long it would take for John to notice. That would also add a nice result to Sherlock's on-going experiment on sentiment. But it wasn't an immediate result, which meant Sherlock would have to wait for it, and he wasn't in the mood for _waiting_.

It appeared all the great criminal minds of London had gone for a coffee break.

"Isn't there a bank you'd like to rob?" Sherlock yelled out the window. "An office you'd like to blow up? A friend who's so clumsy they might just suffer a nasty little accident? Or maybe you can all wait and bore _me_ to death instead! That'd make an interesting case - The Great Hat Detective Dies Due to Villains' Collective Trip to Starbucks!"

He threw his hands in the air and dived over the coffee table, grabbing his violin as he leapt and sending old case files fluttering onto the floor. Those were solved; John should really have recycled them by now. Sherlock obviously wasn't using them, or he wouldn't be so bloody _bored_.

"Bored!"

Perhaps making sure everyone in the nearby vicinity _knew_ he was bored would somehow make it go away. His fingers tugged at the strings, twisting them this way and that, winding them tightly around fingertips and under his nails until the skin turned white and occasionally lifting the bow to dredge out a tune. Remnants of old cases crept from where he'd filed them, hulking figures stumbling through corridors and reminding him of details he'd all but deleted but refused to leave without being answered for. That ugly green felt flower on the child abuser's coat which had no right to be there, the chemical formula which could have been a mistake or a previously undiscovered substance altogether and the searing, screaming pain as the old fashioned hansom ran him over and the murderer vanished along with Sherlock's consciousness. But they weren't new and they were so unsolvable, so heinously unsolvable, that Sherlock sent them back to the cellars where they cowered and skittered like rats. The notes rang as he chased them away, _oranges and lemons say the bells of saint Clements,_ all of them darting off save for the face in the hansom which was unrelenting in its vermin form, holding its ground even as Sherlock tried to plague it with sounds which lacerated the air and made his own skin crawl. _Didn't you hear me? Here comes to chopper to chop of your head, here comes the chopper to chop off your head-_

Eventually it was John who plucked the instrument from his grasp and held it at arms length.

"Sherlock! I know you're bored but don't tell me you're trying to occupy yourself by taking up _noise torture_!"

"I was playing," Sherlock protested.

"That," John replied, staring him down. "Was _not_ playing. That was horrible."

Sherlock folded his arms and buried his head into the sofa, kicking his legs in an attempt to make _something_ move even if it wasn't his brain. Sofa cushions disappeared with satisfying _whoosh_ es and _thump_ s, and an even more satisfying _clang_ brought about the end of a mug of tea.

"Christ Sherlock! Mrs Hudson liked that one!"

"Is everything alright, dear? I heard some funny noises." Their landlady's familiar steps shuffled into the living room. She stopped, presumably holding more tea and looking at the way the beverage was now seeping into the floorboards.

"Oh! _Sherlock_ , you mustn't take it out on my flat. Nothing happening at the yard?"

"Apparently not," John said, and the rustle and drag of skin (a little friction; John had shaved last night instead of this morning) on brown-red-green-white collar told Sherlock he'd nodded in his direction.

"Not in two weeks?"

"Haven't heard anything."

"Well, why don't you boys pop round? Lestrade always has something - even if it is only a little something."

"Why should I leave the house for _that_?" Sherlock snapped, ensconcing himself into the gap between the back of the sofa and the leather cushion.

"Because if you don't you'll break everything we own. Come on," John commanded. "Sorry about the tea, Mrs Hudson."

"It's alright. He used to be worse, you know. Once - "

"Alright!" Sherlock said quickly. "Let's go for a little jaunt to the yard - see if there's an interesting case about Anderson's missing brain cells we can work on."

John shrugged at Mrs Hudson and she gave him a _what-are-we-going-to-do-with-him_ look, before he thundered down the stairs after Sherlock with just as much noise but not nearly as much grace.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Lestrade was glowering at a flickering screen when Sherlock picked the lock and flounced into the office. He glowered even more when he saw the lean, coat-clad frame of London's only consulting detective.

"Why didn't you call me?" Sherlock snapped. "You weren't being so ridiculous so as to think you could actually handle a case on your own, were you?"

Lestrade grit his teeth so hard John worried he might actually give himself cause for braces.

"No and no," he said. "For God's sake, Sherlock, when have I ever not called you? London's crime scene is dead."

"It's not dead!" Sherlock scoffed, before flicking his stare back to Greg. "Why is it dead?"

"Look, we don't know, we're trying to find out."

"You've had two weeks! Find out faster!" Sherlock replied, striding up and down. Lestrade watched him in tired exasperation and ran a hand through what little hair he had. John thought it wasn't as such running, more stroking, like a wiry guinea pig. "You're not seriously telling me there's been nothing? Not even a missing pet?"

"Quiet as _mice_ ," Lestrade said, grinning to himself but then stopping abruptly when he saw Sherlock's face. John snorted. "Sorry. OK - no, there's been nothing. The last call to this unit was exactly fourteen days ago. No private enquiries on your end?"

Sherlock didn't bother replying and instead tugged at his curls, pacing in an elliptical orbit around the DI's desk. After every few strides he'd pause, feet exactly where they'd been half-stride, steeple his fingers and open his mouth slightly as if to say something but then wave it off and resume his path.

"What about the other units?" he asked.

"Yeah, they've had calls. But only the usual; drunken fights, vandalism, you know."

"So only serious crime..." Sherlock muttered, and waved his arms as if trying to conduct some out of thin air. "It can't just have _stopped_. It doesn't just _stop_."

"Well, apparently it has," Lestrade said. "I'll ring you if anything happens, but... are you done?"

"Yes," John decided, grabbing Sherlock's coat sleeve and swinging away from the desk towards the door. "Come on."

After he'd herded the still muttering Sherlock into the corridor John aimed to follow but paused, leaning back into the office.

"Greg, even if it's something really small - I don't care what - ring Sherlock, will you? He's driving us both insane."

Lestrade nodded, and John ducked his head, jogging down the corridor to catch up with Sherlock whose tread was of someone trying to stamp down the tiling rather than the swift strides he was prone to.

The people were back, the woman with the flower and the chemical formula and the face in the hansom, grinning and leering and imbuing every room with their mocking laughter at his lack of success and leaving their traces over everything; felt on the glass cases of butterflies, double carbon bonds strung from the ceiling in the room with the man who repetitively listed the human taxonomic classification _eukaryota animalia chordata mammalia primata hominidae homo homosapien_ stop it stop it, and the grinning face whenever Sherlock looked in a mirror. He was going in circles, ghosting from room to room but only able to see and not observe, the information so desperate for attention that it leapt and marrauded in the corridors - alligators can, no, ninety eight per cent, yes, two over pi, stop! The sixth commandment is _thou shalt not kill!_ That was it then! Every criminal mastermind in London had become Christian fundamentalists!

"Sherlock, you alright?"

A muted sound, which thrust its way into the palace in one long wave, the rarefractions spreading out and scattering the artefacts Sherlock had managed to piece back together and rearrange on the shelf.

"Hey, Sherlock?"

"Stop it!" Sherlock yelled. His fingers flew to his temples to stop the information from literally falling from his head. "I'm going mad."

"You _are_ mad," John concluded. He smiled. Sherlock checked his records of John's smiles and matched it to the corresponding emotion. It wasn't mocking, it was... fond. Defect?

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Sherlock pulled down all his chemistry equipment when they got back, strewing it across the kitchen work surfaces, table and floor. His head roared, the professors and lecturers he'd assigned to their podiums to speak whenever he entered a theatre running amok in the hallways, chattering frantically to everyone they met as if _they_ were the ones whose facts were emigrating. Equations ran and stopped half way, pushed aside by notes and bars and swooping scales played in the style of Debussy, Vivaldi, _Daft bloody Punk_. Files and notes were stuck in cages, flapping against their bars and getting stuck against the glass; hot thighs on plastic seats and drowning wasps in honey.

"Give me some of your blood," Sherlock said, and filed that quickly into the _not fine_ box when John blanched and backed slightly away from where he'd been crowding round the microscope, muttering about the equipment they had at the doctors' surgery.

"What?"

"Blood," Sherlock said. Did he have to spell it out? _Plasma, CO2, platelets, lymphocytes, phagocytes, h2O, O2, haemoglobin (protein; C738H1166N812O203S2Fe; tetramer; two alpha chains; two beta chains -)_

"Sherlock, I am not giving you my _blood_ ," John said. "Use your own."

So Sherlock did, tearing the alabaster skin and letting the liquid collect in a test tube. _Pinot, merlot, sauvignon, claret, radio, round shrubs, sweat and dusty earth._ He pushed the pain away into the nebulous confines of his consciousness, and occupied himself fastidiously checking his notes on plasmolysis.

"Hey, I didn't mean that literally!" John exclaimed, then passed a hand over his face, deciding never to suggest something he didn't actually mean to Sherlock again. Because from Sherlock's point of view, John realised, what was the point in giving advice if you didn't actually recommend it? He rubbed harder at his face to remove the worried frown, and watched in mild bemusement for a minute or so before he fetched a tub of antiseptic and a plaster and placed them on the kitchen table. Sherlock would probably completely ignore it, but at least John could do his part in preventing the ramifications of Sherlock's experiments. He didn't fancy lancing Sherlock's arm again following another nasty infection (the previous time it had been the result of an investigation into field of suspicious GM turnips) - Sherlock hadn't appreciated having to suffer pain after his "transport" launched a "revolt" against him.

John sat down and began tapping again. Another email, Sherlock assumed. For once, pressed back by the flow of catalogued information, the people in the room were silent.

It kept Sherlock busy for an hour.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advanced apologies for the fact that I am notoriously bad at keeping up with my own projects - so updates will probably be rather sporadic. As for now, I'm going to go and have tea... Greek pastries...

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Five days on and John had to find something for Sherlock to do. He was like a child, needing constant entertainment and no sleep. However unlike a child, he resisted John's attempts to get him swallow even small pieces of chocolate. He couldn't sit down for long enough to eat or sleep, yet he was pacing so frequently that he surely must be requiring huge amounts of energy to keep it up. He had read every book in the flat, filled in every puzzle, fast-forwarded through every medical or criminal documentary they owned narrating the transcript as he went and texted Lestrade so many times that the DI had personally asked John to try and make him stop. John was at a loss. He finally resolved to do something when he came home from the supermarket with milk and immediately had to tip it out over the fire Sherlock had started on the rug. "An experiment into the flammability of llama fibres with different substances - could prove useful to their survival." Sherlock hadn't seemed to mind the fact that the hand-sanitizer induced flames had begun to lick at his shirt sleeve; in fact he'd been rather intrigued.

So John scoured every paper and news channel and eventually came over the kidnapping of a husband in France.

"Fancy a trip across the channel?" John asked. It should have been a joke, but right now he'd never been more serious about popping to land of the baguette.

Sherlock's eyebrows quirked and he skidded over to join John, almost sliding into his lap as he flung himself onto the arm of the chair to read the paper.

He read the article, and immediately his brain span back to life from the limbo of hibernation it had been slowly, messily drowning into. The electrical charges which should have been pulsing through his axons for the last two weeks but had instead been sitting stagnant whirled through his brain, and it felt _wonderful._ Brilliant. Fantastic. Quite literally _electric_. He checked the data of all the French cases he'd solved, all the kidnappings, all the potential husband-wife husband-colleague scenarios, all the most useful French verbs he could remember, ticking them off in rapid motions of his hands and stowing them back into their cabinets. Pearls! Tigers! Metal! Agar! Waltz! Petrichor! The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, which wasn't really a phenomenon, more of a cognitive bias, but!

John watched him. Sherlock's eyes were gleaming, his lips ajar, the corner of his mouth working in small quirks, a grin threatening to smother his expression. Even though it was just a small case, one he'd maybe rate as a five or six, Sherlock looked as if he'd just been handed a really splendid locked room serial double murder-suicide. John could practically feel his flatmate's mind _dancing_.

"That's a yes, I take it?" John asked, unable to help himself being imbued with Sherlock's enthusiasm and relief, oh the relief, of finding him something to excercise his brain on. His mouth cracked into a broad grin.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Sherlock shouted, jumping up with a clench of his fists. "Will you come? Of course you'll come. Ring Mycroft, get him to book train tickets or something."

John's stomach gave an uncomfortable twist.

"Actually, I was, uh - "

"Have you rung him yet?"

"No, Sherlock, I - "

"Hurry up, John! We don't have all day to get to France! Do we have suitcases?"

"Sherlock!" John yelled. Sherlock whipped round impatiently.

"I told my _girlfriend_ I'd accompany her to a literary competition. She's written a poem and it's uh... it's very good."

Sherlock stared at him as if he'd announced he wouldn't be able to come because he was redecorating the flat in rabbit-patterned wallpaper. John _felt_ as if he'd announced he was doing just that. He looked down and tapped his walking stick against the floor. Sherlock seemed to be trying to stare him down through his hair.

"No," Sherlock said, when he'd decided against the verbal abuse he was tempted to throw at John. "Come on John! Girlfriends, literature... they're all so... as I said, _tedious_! Trivial! Dull! And poetry? You?!" He laughed, but it came out tense - more that he was trying to convince himself than John. Sherlock cursed his larynx.

John pushed his lips together. "You were the one who suggested I brush up on my Shakespeare."

He attempted a smile, but Sherlock just wrung his hands.

"As a _joke_!"

"Right, but... I promised, OK, Sherlock, I can't just go dashing off - "

"Why not?"

Sherlock seemed genuinely lost for reason, which didn't happen very often.

"You have no idea, do you?" John said eventually, shaking his head but unable to stop the mirth that spread over his face. "Sherlock, when you're in a relationship, you make commitments to another person, and not breaking them is - is a sign of trust."

"You made a commitment to me," Sherlock insisted. John raised his eyebrows and was about to ask which particular commitment this was - that he'd buy all the milk? That he'd tolerate Sherlock's black moods? That he'd clean the most serious offenders of toxic/mouldy experiment convictions out of the fridge? - but Sherlock intercepted him.

"I'd be lost without my blogger."

The fight bled out of John. He leaned back into the sofa, heaving a sigh, top of the armchair pushing with noticeable discomfort into the back of his head. He let it.

"OK," he said. "OK."

Sherlock beamed, and John pushed away the anger that came with Sherlock actually being able to make him feel _guilt_ over wanting to do something with his girlfriend. He'd have to ring her, he supposed. Have to explain that once again, the Great Sherlock Holmes had taken priority. Quite how, he wasn't sure. He'd also probably have to explain to her that he really, really, wasn't gay, which might take even more effort. He dialed her number, and prayed for voicemail. But, as they both knew, John Watson was not a lucky man.

"John?"

"Uh, hi, yes, um, Jenny," John managed, unable to choose how to address her and going for all potential options at once.

"How eloquent," Sherlock muttered in the background. John gave him a look that he hoped said _I'm doing this for you you ungrateful bastard_ , but Sherlock had conveniently managed to turn his back in favour of a miniture fermenter.

"Yeah?"

"I, uh... well, that literary thing, and there's been a kidnapping in France."

John waited for Sherlock to stop visibly deciding not to say something, and for the silence on Jenny's line to end.

"And the two are connected... how?" came his girlfriend's voice. It was a little _hopeful_ , John thought with dread; she probably already knew what was coming.

"I can't come," John said finally. "Because of the kidnapping. I have to go to France. For... work."

"For work!"

There it was. The incredulous laugh.

"Jenny, I'm sorry."

She laughed again.

"We'll see a play when I get back," John said frantically. "Hamlet, isn't it? There, I've said it now, I'll even go and see Hamlet with you."

"Richard the eighth," she bit back.

"Right."

John tried to swallow with little success and rubbed his knee, and then Sherlock was behind him, deftly snatching the phone out of John's hands.

"Hello, girlfriend number fifteen - at least I think you are; I lose track. I'm so _very_ sorry he can't make it to your literary thingy majig, although I can't say he's too bothered. He fell asleep at a reading we went to once - and that was only so I could gather data. Caesar shift code hidden in Ode to a Nighting Gale, by the way. Sure you'll agree that the abduction and potential murder of a husband requires John's medical attention much more than the imagery of flora blowing in the wind. Goodbye!"

John, for not the first time in the last five minutes, wondered what method of mind control or drugs Sherlock had employed to make him agree to this. It wasn't even unlikely; Sherlock _had_ admitted to putting drugs in John's food before. He tried not to be bothered by the fact that once a whole Wednesday had gone past without his notice. Sherlock chucked the phone behind the sofa, and downgraded the likely length of John and Jenny's relationship to two weeks.

"Thanks," John said. "Thanks for that."

"If I'd have left it to you the husband would _definitely_ be dead by the time you finsihed talking," Sherlock replied, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. Oh, he was _infuriating_.

John went to make tea before Sherlock could tell him she was gay or a prostitute or kept fifty model kittens in her basement.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Mycroft had them tickets on that evening's Eurostar to Paris within half an hour. It was one of the benefits, John thought, of your flat mate's brother being more government than human.

Sherlock practically vibrated with excitement all the way, only pausing to unravel the man pushing the tea trolley.

"Anything for you, sir?"

"You spilt a pot of milk this morning, you're saving up for better shoes and you're considering a divorce," Sherlock said as a means of reply.

The man looked a thoroughly confused at first, and then a look of shock took over as he released that his customer was, in fact, correct. _Of course he's correct_ , John thought, shooting Sherlock a look before waving one of the impertinent show-off's five-pound notes at the trolley-pusher.

"Coffee for me, thanks," he said. "Milk, no sugar."

"And," Sherlock continued, "you've just won a bet."

"The man almost poured John's tea over his arm.

"How did -"

"The amount of cups you have left - the ones for tea, anyway - does not correspond to the amount of milk if we refer to average milk consumption per cup - about 8ml - therefore either someone drank a whole jug or it was poured out by accident. Both your cufflinks, tie and shoes need replacing - you could have afforded to replace your tie and cufflinks, I can see the shape of folded notes in your top pocket; close to fourty quid - but no, you are saving them, so shoes it is. You -"

John gave Sherlock what wasn't a gentle kick under their table and took the tea before his flatmate could say anything else that might result in a trip to A&E.

"Great, thanks," he said, taking the cup. "Ignore him."

The trolley-pusher shuffled off, looking understandably wary.

"Can't you stick to dead people?" John asked, taking a sip of coffee. It was hot, and he almost spat it out.

"But they always have such predictable responses," Sherlock replied. John laughed, and the coffee completed its assignment and splattered across the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't really mean to leave 'land of the baguette' there, but it kind of stuck...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Et voila, une autre chapter! Enjoyez-vous!  
> (I take no responsibility for anything bad resulting from attempts to follow the travel advice in this fic.)

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

The map of the Paris Gare du Nord station (architect: Jacques Hittroff, 1861-64) was infused across Sherlock's mind, stored in the A-Z Paris, nestled beside the A-Z London, twelfth across, second shelf down. Red dashes standing like sentries spread to Sherlock's attention across the tiles, leading the way from the doors they'd just left to the doors which would lead them out into the aestival thrum of the city. They glowed like light houses, pressing the hubbub of the station into the shadows, obscuring it from Sherlock's vision in a cool monochrome. Insipid chatter faded, the conversations which had been encroaching into him pushed aside and faded into the constant hum of John, who marched in time as Sherlock followed the red dash path _five forward, 90 degrees left, ticket check, seventeen forward, passport check and security, three forward, 90 degrees right, halt, step up (quadricep, hamstring, gluteus maximus), step up -_

"You know where we're going then?" a voice asked.

"Of course," Sherlock replied, flashing a smile at John. Did he doubt his ability to navigate their way out of the 40 over ground and 8 underground platforms? Surely not. Sherlock had proved his recollection of London's susurrus of streets uncountable times - John had _staggering_ empirical evidence. The car chase, for example (Broadwick, Poland, D'arblay, Wardour); it had occurred in what his flatmate had degradingly dubbed "A Study in Pink".

"Not the station," John replied. _Twenty-three forward, 90 degrees left, and -_

"All aboard the giant conveyor belt!" Sherlock announced, ushering John on board. He stumbled on a case wheel, grabbing Sherlock's coat to steady himself. Sherlock's palm readied itself to slap away the offending fingers, but then he'd waited until John was upright, and then John was letting go anyway, and it didn't matter now, did it. The "not fine" box had whispered its warnings but there was something else that had denied every sinew to move, fixing his hand to his side of his pocket. National service and books in junkshop windows.

"I mean where after we've got off the... giant conveyor belt," John said, motioning to the moving section they were now stood on.

"Madame et Moinseur Lachance," Sherlock replied. "Apartment 8a, Rue Beaujon, three minutes from the Champs Elysees. There's a metro."

"Let me guess, you've memorised that map too?"

Sherlock didn't dignify that with an answer.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

The station opened up onto a wide grey street, lined on either side with beige-bricked rectangular buildings: flats flanked by unfurling stone carvings. Statues of figures were propped atop the entrance to the station, and John peered at them for a minute, unable to decide whether he was more perturbed or intrigued by their presence.

"The middle one represents Paris, with four ancient gods on either side," Sherlock said nonchalantly, appearing at John's side out of nowhere.

"Of course," John replied. He'd been assuming they were just another set of Biblical references - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and... who else was there? Peter, maybe. "They're watching us."

"Couldn't commit a murder in this street," Sherlock nodded.

"Probably arise in the middle of the night and whisper to each other about it."

"Smite you in your sleep," Sherlock replied, and gave John a grin. The Gods looked on with their unwavering omniscience, probably plotting revenge for being mocked. John decided to go for "perturbed", and turned to follow Sherlock, narrowly dodging a flower seller who yelled something in French as the tip of a tulip brushed against John's left thigh.

"Sorry, sorry," John replied, backing away hastily and holding his hands up in surrender, even though he might as well have meowed for all the man seemed to understand.

"Il veut dire desolee," Sherlock said quickly, which seemed to appease the man. He tugged at John's arm again.

"Come _on_ John, we don't have all day!"

"I'm coming!"

They wound their way through the tourists who were dragging children and cases in much the same way, Sherlock leaping over feet and wheels and hoisting his suitcase into the air with as much ease as if it had been an extra limb. John struggled with his; one wheel was slightly bent and kept refusing to roll, so he had to tip the case its side to get it to move. Sherlock had probably jumped on it at some point, fists clenched, yelling "A murder! Fantastic, haven't had one of those in ages!" It probably wasn't ordinary for a man to be able to imagine his flatmate doing this so clearly and for it to actually be the most likely explanation, but, well, as Sherlock said - ordinary was boring.

"John!"

Sherlock's voice bounced across the crowds over the dry, sweet-smelling air towards him. They had all day to get to the Lachances - in fact John wasn't even sure they'd let them know they were coming - yet telling Sherlock to slow down seemed like a pointless waste of breath. John might as well save it for when the detective would actually listen to him.

" _John!_ "

Sherlock was charging down the metro steps, coat flying out behind him. People were staring, which could have been for two reasons:  
a) Why was a man in such a hurry to catch a train which came every five minutes?  
b) Why was said man wearing a woollen Belstaff in the height of summer?

"For God's sake, Sherlock! Sherlock!"

And maybe now there was a third reason:  
c) Who was that short man with grey-dashed blonde hair tripping along the stairs behind him and shouting for an escaped dog with a weird name?

John blundered onto platform 6 and started at the signs. A map of the tube hung down from the curved stone ceiling like a matador's flag, still amidst the charging herd of commuters who barely paused for breath and seemed intent on risking limbs to climb aboard. How Sherlock had memorised the whole spectrum of track was beyond him: if the London underground was a maze, then this was Daedalus' labyrinth.

"Bloody hell," said John, and then, "pardon my French," and then looked up and to his left expecting the detective to be giggling into his collar but finding only empty space. The empty space was quickly filled with a tall, purple hairdo and then a train. Sherlock had probably thought, "Oh, John'll follow" and simply forgotten the minor hiccup in this plan - that John couldn't tell the difference between un and deux.

"Bugger," said John. _George V_ , said the train.

John had no idea which line they needed to get to the Rue Beajon, wherever that was, but one named _George V_ certainly sounded upper class enough. Except in the French language, every word sounded upper class. The word for "slum" was probably not dissimilar to the word for "penthouse". Snails were called _escargots_ , for Christ's sake. And John only knew that because of a particularly long-winded joke Harry had once told him in the back of a taxi cab, on the way home on a snowy boxing day.

The train began to beep its warning and John twisted his jaw in resolve. In a few strides he was being pulled through the sliding doors by his shirt at the front while someone kicked in his case at the back, and then the train was moving before John had time to say "thank you" and then correct it to "merci".

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

If Sherlock had been on the train - in fact if the entire British cycling team had been on the train - John would not have known. There was a visibility in all directions of about two shirts, and his nose was thrust into fabric like it was a bunch of flowers someone had given him to smell. He was inhaling a mix of back-of-the-wardrobe and chutney. Peach, John thought. At least, that was what the peach chutney in the flat had smelt like before he'd had to recycle it due to a contamination issue. No points for guessing who's fault that was.

His suitcase was tangled under his feet someone, blockaded in by several pairs of shoes. And his elbow itched, but that was pinned against his side by a shockingly violet skirt suit, the arm of which was clutching a Starbucks like a lifeline. People moved with the motion of the train, the different smells and fabrics brushing past him like a strange sensory garden.

John's phone vibrated in his pocket. It was a sweet reminder that he was still in London and not packed alongside fellow khaki in a dust-filled truck.

_Which line? -SH_

_Henry V_ , John texted back when he could.

 _Get off at Charles de Gaule Etoille -SH_.

_Which line are you on?_

Sherlock didn't reply to that, so John stuffed the phone back into what he at least thought was his pocket.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Charles de Gaule Etoille spread-eagled before John in varying hues of grey linoleum and yellow and orange tiles.

"Jolly," John said with a nod in their direction when he found Sherlock, tapping away on his phone by the exit.

Sherlock looked up, blinked for a few seconds as if tuning his brain back from French to English, and then said.

"Were you _trying_ to get lost?"

John rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't have got lost if _someone_ hadn't run off without me," he retorted. "Only one of us knows their way around Paris, you know."

Sherlock pouted and glared ahead. John considered mentioning that it was nothing to worry about, really, but Sherlock was already flouncing out into the street. It was possibly even warmer than it had been twenty minutes ago, and John tried not to feel like a seventeen year-old boy again as he stripped his shirt off and tied it around his waist. There was something so teenage about striding through the city in a V-neck and jeans that John felt as if he should be finding a fountain to pour bubble bath into, or extinguishing the flame under the Arc de Triumph.

"Told the Lachances we're coming yet?" he asked Sherlock, who seemed to be having no such problems.

And then whatever answer he might have been about to give was cut short when a figure rushed out of the aisle of trees lining the road, doubled over with his hands on his knees and gasped, "gentlemen!"


	5. Chapter 5

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

Sherlock blinked at the 40 year-old playwright with Belgian ancestors, a drinking habit and an unassuming job as a librarian. This was a waste of precious time. They were two minutes away from the Lachances, and he had already taken up at least one. They would have to walk 100% faster to reach 8a, Reu Beajon in the same amount of time, which (in John's case at least) was impossible. This lethargic excuse for a human being was solving no crimes and Sherlock's mind was roaring, the questions he'd prepared for the wife obliterating everything in their path, question marks hovering at the sides of his vision, John's words merging into interrogation. They demanded answers, and those answers could solve other answers, and then the ideas he'd drafted together could be sorted and discarded and rearranged and he needed to know _now. Clang, clang, clang_.

"Cymbal-banging monkeys," Sherlock hissed. John looked up.  
"Not Vatican Cameos, you idiot," Sherlock corrected, and then thought maybe he _should_ have said "Vatican Cameos". Then John would have followed him, instead of looking like Sherlock was having an aneurism.

"You OK?" John asked.

"Fine," Sherlock replied stoutly.

John scanned Sherlock's face for a few seconds, cataloguing things that were probably ridiculous like " _sign of nicotine poisoning_ " and then turned his back on Sherlock in favour of the panting man, which was quite frankly an infringement on the Hippocratic oath, seeing as Sherlock was the one suffering from _a permanent cardiac or arterial dilation usually caused by weakening of the vessel wall_ here.

"I'm a doctor," his flatmate was saying, which was unnecessary, because it was obvious, wasn't it? "You need to tell me what's wrong. "

"I'll tell you what's wrong," Sherlock said, because John was discovering his inner Florence Nightingale again and they would be there for _hours_. "Lack of exercise and poor diet. Especially the alcohol."

"Shut up, Sherlock. You're not exactly a model for good health."

The man was looking frantic now that he'd finally regained normal pulmonary function. "Non, non, non!" he was saying, waving an arm. "Entendez bien! Do you act?"

"Sorry?"

"Act!" The man exclaimed. "My play, my beautiful play... my actor, he is malade; how you say, _sick_? He has no more voice. It is the interval. I need an actor. Please! My life rests on this... my wife, my children. Oh, think of my children, Doctor Watson!"

"Doctor... Watson?"

"Yes, my actor, he suggests you, he sees you through the trees and says to me, _there's this Doctor Watson with his friend Sherlock Holmes, sometimes I read his blog and he has a way with words, would he not be good?_ Will you play the part? It is now very short; only a few lines. Perhaps you know them already?"

He lifted John's hand into his own and dropped it again like a limp puppet. "No, apparently no. You say, _oui, oui, oui, pour la prosperite et le povrete, blah, blah, jusqu'a la morte nous separe_... comprende?"

"Is this necessary?" Sherlock asked. "There are hundreds of people on this street. Pick someone who isn't solving a crime."

"It can only be this man! Isn't he perfect? Very attractive; a very good match for my other actor, maybe my audience won't notice even! And a good French accent, too!"

"French accent!" Sherlock exclaimed. "Have you _heard_ him?"

"Shut _up_ , Sherlock,"

"You're joking," Sherlock said, and checked John's face, just to make sure. "You're not joking."

"Come, come, we have not a lot of time! Alhors, you can read the lines from the paper, and then you sign the paper like the marriage certificate, but it has your lines also, this the audience do not see - I beg you, Doctor! I have critics here, this play could make me, I could escape the poverty, send my children to school - it is a vicious cycle, truly the worst. Have you ever had a new life, Doctor Watson?"

 _Yes_ , thought John, but he didn't say it. The cause of the "yes" shifted sullenly by his right, standing to attention like an honourable wooden nutcracker but wearing a look that could hang, draw and quarter you.

"Oui?" the man said, apparently seeing something in John's face that he hadn't intended to show. John schooled his expression back. "Think of that new life. Think of it again but for me."

Sherlock wasn't John's first. The other had been on a thin-aired, cool night in Afghanistan. The sky had been spun with web upon web of stars, the sight of which John had for once stopped taking advantage of and instead wrapped the up in silk to take with him wherever you went when you died. He'd been roped to a tree, toes recoiled from the uniformed guard of terrorist group E.S.C.A. who lay sleeping at his feet. After thirty six hours his eyes were beginning to droop to a lullaby of staccato gun shots and crescendoing shells, when a policeman had crept out of the bushes. He'd walked over, tredding like a cat, crouched softly in the sand so it parted in a susurrus around his knee and untied John, whispering, "Talal, talal!". John had gone at his command, rushing headlong towards the faint light of a city, _please God, let me live_ , but not quite rushing fast enough to miss the pounding of rifle fire from where he'd come. He hadn't forgotten the kindness of strangers.

"OK. Sherlock, wait here for me," commanded Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusileers. "I'm going to be ten minutes."

Sherlock opened his mouth, and shut it, because John was being particularly _stupid_ and didn't deserve to hear him. John "there are lives at stake" Watson was being a complete imbecile. He was being an oik and a snollygoster. He was a succulent old washing bag. He smelt of mountain goat. He couldn't put on a shoe if the instructions were printed on the heel. Taking John's existence into account, the human species could no longer be considered the most advanced on the planet. There was a _missing husband_ , and John was choosing _now_ to try his hand at acting.

He watched John follow the man as he dashed back through the trees, giving Sherlock a cursory glance over his shoulder. In a few minutes the lilting sound of the bridal march played in a minor key on the violin drifted towards him, accompanied by the hush of the audience.  
 _Ten minutes_. Impossible.

Time. An infinite variable like a taut string, plucked at one end and the reverberations could carry to God knows where. Any change a rock dropped in a pool, the ripples spreading inexorably across the surface, lily pads bobbing on the crests of the waves. Of paramount importance in a world of humans skittering ant-like in criss crossing paths, every second wasted or gained altering where they might meet. Debatable whether invented or discovered, but a foregone conclusion that it _mattered_. And here, ten minutes could mean the difference between a husband scattered to the winds, or Sherlock picking up the scent before it was obliterated. He grasped his coat collars and flipped them upwards, taking John's case in one hand and his in the other, and started for Rue Beaujon.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

The speech sat on the podium, fastiduously checked for anything stupid, for anything obvious, for anything suggestible, for anything like stray fugu in a seafood dish. Mycroft watched from the corner, saying nothing, sipping his drink, while Sherlock's palms left sticky imprints on the wood. Please say nothing, please say nothing. The words, chosen to minimise any possible interviewer bias, lay sprawled on the paper, oblivous to the havoc they could wreak. Texted, said with the wrong intonnation, dropped in the wrong order into conversation. John could fix the jumble for him, could right in an instant a misplaced comment, but he was prancing around on a stage, probably in tights, speaking _French_.

The door opened.

"Elisabeth Lachance, my name is Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock said. _Good start. Not your usual standard, but good start._ "I'm here to ask questions about your missing husband - I am so very sorry."

He thrust DI Lestrade's ID at her. _You're telling me he still hasn't noticed?_ People didn't usually notice their names didn't match, especially people whose husbands were missing.

"Yes, well, naturally," the woman standing in the door replied. She was maybe thirty, with a round face and high cheek bones, dark black hair cut into a bob which rested on a white collar. Immaculate. _Attractive_. "I'm up this way."

She held the door open, and Sherlock gathered up her dental history in one wide smile. _Don't be an arse, say thank you._

"Thank you."

He followed her up ten white steps. Her feet, in the new tights she'd just found at the back of her drawer, retracing the set of footprints imprinted into the carpet.

 _Set_. Singular.

"How did your husband get to the apartment?"

"He took the lift," she replied, and smiled; Sherlock could see the rise of her cheeks from behind. Max Factor English Rose. "He had... a phobia of stairs."

"Bathmophobia or climacphobia?"

"What was that?"

"Did he experience anxiety at the sight of stairs, or only when asked to descend or ascend?" _I know I said talk to people about what they're interested in, but maybe next time ask about her favourite film?_

It was a logical question, Sherlock thought. The two were different. He also needed to ask John about the smiling - did people smile in grief, like when they used the same muscles in crying? He listed it on the newspaper within the contours of the black and white brick Borris Johnson was holding up, folded it in seven, tucked it under the skull and turned the knife holding down the envelopes through sixty five degrees - a reminder.

They had reached the top of the stairs, and he found himself taking in a wide room with rounded corners - the kind Mrs Hudson said were _terribly impractical for wallpapering_. The paper here was patchy, but not only at the edges - the whole expanse was coming off in places, damp being the most likely culprit. The furniture however was modern or antique; nothing in the middle, all expensive but not quite matching, a bit like a theatrical set. Grandfather clocks snuggled against glass desks.

One of the said desks was a coffee table adorned with five placemats, two of them holding the remnants of tea. It was chai (traditional preparation by decoction of green cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, ground cloves, ground ginger, and black peppercorn together with black tea leaves - but she'd used a tea bag); they'd run out of red bush, then. On one of the mugs the tea stained the left rim, on the other the right. Two mouse mats, one on either side of the computer. A shopping list on a white board, the first line smudged by someone writing with their hand held at an awkward angle on the second. Two different sets of hands - one right dominant, one left.

"There's a form I need you to sign; won't take a second, very trivial police thing," Sherlock said, producing a warrant and indicating vaguely to a space at the bottom. He held it out to the woman, and her mouth quirked up into a smile again. She asked no questions, simply signed. Right handed. Sherlock returned the smile; tucked the page into his pocket. The speech flapped, Mycroft cocked an eyebrow and folded one set of pinstripes over the other. Gaining weight again, Sherlock thought. One or two pounds? No, he was being too kind. Three.

Where was the vicar? In the taxidermy section of the museum, tears splashing in time to the earth he shovelled onto the coffin, pitter patter pitter patter. Sherlock went to his side. Eyebrows downcast, mouth a thin line, cheek muscles relaxed like he didn't have the strength to hold them up. Not so very difficult. _Do people really fall for those crocodile tears?_

Sherlock mimicked him: wiped an eye, sniffed slightly like John did when he had a cold, only not quite so repulsively, and said, "I know it might be difficult, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened when your husband disappeared. Quickly, and in your own words." _Yes, that'll make her talk._ "Please."

"A drink," Elisabeth said in response. "Don't you just love a drink when you're upset?"

"I don't recall."

She moved to a cabinet and took down a bottle of wine. 1961, and dusty, nestled in among supermarket brands made in the same year they were bought. Why open it now? Multiple reasons. Sherlock saw them now, all the people he'd seen with their hands clasped round vintage wines, sat on red leather stools at the bar and watching him with round, bloodshot eyes as he made his way past.  
Harry Watson, fist shaking, bottle jarring up and down in her lap. Bought but not drank on the night of her marriage. Misery.  
Abigail Schuster, grabbing it from her collection and hurling it at Sherlock when he uncovered her affair. Anger.  
M. K. Kimura, approaching the table, bottle wrapped in a bleach white handkerchief. Hospitality.  
The Earl Westicote, swanning through his party guests and parading it like a rosette. Show.  
His uncle, ogling at him from an armchair in the library, waving the green glass like an emergency signal and saying, "Si'down boy, and I'll tell you about boson particles." Addiction.

Elisabeth Lachance was not doing any of these things. _Use your brain, Sherlock, think like a normal person for once_. The taxidermied heads blinked at him uselessly, even the corner of the sobbing vicar's mouth curving up into a smile as they watched him. He searched them all - stopping again and again at inscrutable, stoic, impassive. Elisabeth Lachance was wrong, wrong, wrong. She needed to be analysed, she needed to be smoked over, she needed John's diagnosis of how and why this was the result of sentiment. He found the phone keys through his trouser pocket.

_8a Rue Beaujon, get a taxi -SH_

She put the wine bottle between her knees, held the neck, and took a corkscrew from the drawer next to the oven. She plunged it in like it was a voodoo doll, and began to twist with her left hand.  _Left_ _hand_.

"Does he exist?" Sherlock demanded, at the woman's side in an instant. "Does he even _exist_?"

_Well you've blown it if he does._

"You're ambidextrous, aren't you," he continued when Elisabeth didn't speak. "I thought there were two people living here but no, it's just you, isn't it? Tell me, when's the last time a husband went missing this side of the Seine?"

Elisabeth laughed, slapped a hand against her thigh.  
"Well, aren't you the little princox?" she said. "Very good, very _good_ , Sherlock Holmes. A record time of two minutes and fifteen seconds, put that on the board Jeremy Clarkson. You're right, ten out of ten, it's just me here, all on my lonesome. But now, your second question... let me see, three minutes ago? I never said it was _my_ husband."

"You never said it _wasn't_."

_There you go again, outsmarting God trying to get the last word._

This was becoming a singular problem, but Elisabeth Lachance threw a spanner into the works of what should have been a satisfying case. Yes, it was interesting, and the disappearance built his hopes - hopes of a night of blood pumping through his veins and retinas screaming as he ran from unlit snickets into the glare of street lamps, but something was beginning to tick at the back of his mind. The sound of a castrato grandfather clock.

"The husband," Sherlock said. "Tell me everything about his disappearance. And if you miss a detail, I will _know_."

There was the smile again, broader this time, the Max Factor English Rose almost tinting her lower eyelashes pink. Elisabeth sat down and flicked a hair out of her face.

"He's only very recently engaged," she said. "In Paris, very romantic. All the world's a stage for declarations of love. He's never been to Paris before, he shouldn't even _be_ in Paris, but his friend - his best friend, oh, _ouch_ \- made him come. You're looking a bit odd. Sure you don't want that drink?"

A sensation not unlike a slippery, icy finger - maybe one belonging to a fishmonger, he thought - went down Sherlock's spine. John. John. John. It couldn't be. John? He had to be wrong, please be wrong, why wasn't Mycroft saying wrong? _Tell me I'm stupid. Tell me I'm wrong, tell me Mummy and Daddy are disappointed. Just tell me I'm wrong_. Mycroft's lips were sealed. He rubbed a hand along his pinstripes. Him; his fault. John. Missing. Where. Who? Why? What did they want with John? Wait, no that was wrong, they couldn't want _John_. There was nothing John could do that no other doctor couldn't. So they must want him. Him to do something in return for John's safety. _Ting,_ went the clock. Twelve strikes. _Ting, ting, ting_.

"What do you want me to do?" Sherlock asked, and 221b's walls shook with the air Mycroft noisily exhaled. He was folding his head into his hands, showing all his eight double chins. _Now you're being stupid. Stupid little boys get hurt. Remember Redbeard, Sherlock?_

"Oh, _one hundred and eighty_!" exclaimed Elisabeth. "Hole in one. If I was an arcade game I'd be handing you your stuffed Nemo. Sit down for this part, I'll tell you."

Sherlock scoffed, and then tuned his eyes on Elisabeth's. "Tell me what you want me to do and make it quick."

"Oh, you're no fun," she said. "OK, listen. Jacques Borde has discovered a way to create a synthetic form of tobacco, with few discernible health consequences. I was his assistant, until we had... a minor disagreement. I no longer have a share in profits. Before you go all scientific community on me, I _worked_ on that stuff. Hours of research, sweat, blood, you name it. I deserve profits. The "tobbaqo", he calls it, will be patented in one week. Now - for your sake you'd better be listening - this is your part: you will provide evidence that it was my own discovery, and that Jacques has taken the credit. One sure-cut case of plagiarism, if you will, Mr Holmes. In return, John Watson will not be harmed."

She folded her arms, and sat back. Sherlock waded back through what she'd said as if it were treacle, flapping like a fish on a deck.

"You have no proof," he said, and his throat felt as if he'd been gargling gravel.

"So hopeful... so, so hopeful," Elisabeth said. "Oh, I think you've brought a tear to my eye. Give me one minute; I'll have your proof."

A phone materialised in her hand and she scraped out a couple of taps onto the screen before bringing it to her ear. Whoever it was was on speed dial, then.  
"Alex? Sherlock would like a word with the groom."

There was a muffled sound of shouting, and then Elisabeth waved the phone his direction. The screen showed no number he could remember, only 'witheld'. It had been a vain hope, anyway. He waited only until a voice came through on the other end.

"Oh my God, Sherlock."

Everything was glazing over, everything like white noise fizzing and crackling, _drove she ducklings to the water every morning just at nine_ , _hit her foot against a splinter, fell into the foaming brine._ He shut down everything, closed off the doors to the laboratories and the aviaries and the libraries and 221B, tied the locks tight so nothing could get lost. Sherlock wanted to say _John_ , but then he remembered time, and Mycroft, so instead he said,  
"Where are you? Tell me anything you've seen, heard, smelt, the terrain you've been over, tell me as much as you remember."

"Sherlock. Sherlock, I think I'm the husband," John managed. The voltage of the crackles intensified suddenly and Sherlock winced, barricading himself against the locks as their resistance dropped accordingly. He had to keep his information safe, keep it away from the maelstrom of _rosy lips above the water blowing bubbles soft and fine_ that was spiralling across his vision. Cracked fingertips and Fahrenheit 451.

"No, John, listen to me. I need you to tell me anything you've noticed - come on, _think_."

"I think West," John said. "I think we're going into the sun. It's, um, it's been bumpy. Sherlock, what's happening?"

"Just stay calm, they're not going to hurt you," Sherlock said. He didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to tell John that they were both pawns in a game, and this time, Sherlock couldn't play with his back to the board. He needed to reassure John but he wasn't blessed with that ability, didn't know what John needed to hear. Sometimes John was angry, stubborn, spoke cryptically and gave Sherlock monotonous answers when he'd disappointed him, but he didn't sound disappointed now. He was scared, Sherlock realised with a sickening feeling. How did he tell the man who'd risked his own to save others lives not to be scared?

"I'll fix it," he said, and the line clicked.   
   
"Romeo, Romeo, how art thine Romeo?" Elisabeth asked. She was smiling at him, but it was a veil over cold eyes.

Sherlock ignored her, focusing instead on trying to keep his breathing normal and enough blood reaching his head. _But alas, I was no swimmer, so I lost my Clementine._

"Tell me where I can find Jacques Borde."

She seemed prepared for this question and plucked a business card from her wallet. Why did she have it? Surely they hadn't communicated since they'd stopped working together, and hatred would have driven her to destroy all communication. So, sentiment?  
  
Sherlock snatched up the card and thrust it into his pocket, sweeping towards the door. He turned when he reached it, wanting to say something cutting, something that would leave her wishing she'd never infected Paris with her presence. But the words dried up in his mouth, replaced by the voice of John saying _Sherlock, don't - don't, she's not worth it._  
He took the stairs three at a time.

.-. .- --.. --- .-. / .-- .. .-. . / ... .... .-. .. -. .

　


End file.
